How To : Send Emails With ActiveCampaign – For Beginners

How To : Send Emails With ActiveCampaign – For Beginners

Emailing all contacts one by one would send me to an asylum!

There are limits to how many people you can email at once from your Gmail, Yahoo or…i dunno AOL inbox.

If you want to run a successful business, you know that time is money, and being able to email market to new and past customers is crucial. 

Being in a ‘chain gang’ by emailing them one by one is a recipe for disaster.

Let’s dive into how to use ActiveCampagin for Email marketing. 

In this video I will show you how to add contacts to your ActiveCampaign account, how to Draft an Email from scratch, and how to then properly send it.

I’ll cover best practices so anyone at any level can dive in. 

You’ll need to have an ActiveCampaign account handy, so if you need one, I have a link here.

Before we jump in, we need to do a bit of groundwork. 

Let’s call this Segmentation.

Say you have 100 email addresses that you have. Who are they? Are the contacts, are they customers? Do you have their complete first and last names? Phone numbers? Do you know what they want to be emailed about? This is all crucial information, and let me tell you why. When we add these people into active campaign, we need to make sure they are properly identified with tags.

Using these tags, we can make sure the right email is going to the right person. In a later video, I’ll show how we can ensure new contacts are tagged automatically, but let’s keep it simple for now

First, let’s add all your current email addresses to a spreadsheet. Here is the example I will be using, you can download it here.  I’m going to jump to my computer, so we’ll do it together.

We have First Name, Last Name, email address, and phone number. I have a few tabs too, such as contacts and customers. After filling out these sheets, we export them as CSV files, and save them to a desktop.

Jump into Active Campaign, we first create two tags, one for people who where on the ‘contacts’ tab and one for the customer tab. We then go to ‘Contacts’ tab in ActiveCampaign, and click on the ‘IMPORT’ button. Once the new page loads, we will click the blue Import From File button.

We select our CSV file from the drop down, and in the next page, we select the master contacts lsit, the tag they will be applied with (contacts in this example) and I also check the ‘update current contacts; to ensure I never make any duplicates. 

I then click import.

For any other tabs, simply repeat the process. We mainly want to make sure we have all the email contacts into Active campaign properly formatted and with some basic segmentation, so you can easily email just customers or just contacts. With that said, let’s make an Email

Creating and Sending a Camapgin Email with ActiveCampagin

Click the email button, and then Head to Campaigns. Click on the blue Create A Campaign Button.

You’ll need to name this Email. I typically recommend a naming convention of Subject Line, Date it will be Sent, and if possible, to who.

Down here select ‘Standard.’ I personally use the rest of these options in the automation builder. We are just going to make a simple campaign for now to get up and running.

After clicking Next, We need to select our master contact list. When we do,  using the menu below, we can select the tag to create the segment.

After doing so, let’s click Next

When it comes to designing an email, we are given a few options. HTML i a completely blank slate, you need to have knowledge of coding an email from the ground up

Text only can be useful if deliverability is crucial. Text only emails are very basic, no images, not text formatting, just text.

This does help with getting into the right tab when an email sends, so you may typically see these used for transactional emails. 

The less ‘stuff’, like images, formatted text and hyperlinks, the better.

 Thats a whole other can of worms that I’ll cover in another video.

Typically, I use one of the designers. Let me show you both.

Design An Email In ActiveCampaign

After selecting, you can start completely scratch, or use a template. Using the Newsletter template, we see we need to add a subject line. 

This is the first text a person will see in their inbox, so make sure it is eye-catching and draws interest.

If I am just drafting an email, I typically just use NA. Just make sure to change it.

So, the email is pretty plain. Let’s change it. 

On the right hand side, we have structures and blocks. Structures come first, then blocks gone inside the structures. 

For example, this structure will place a block in the middle, while the evenly divided structure will have to blocks side by side.

When it comes to blocks, I typically just use image and Text, and sometimes a well-placed button. To save time, I typically format one of each. 

For example, I’ll format this button to be purple, and to have a larger font. If I want to use this button elsewhere, I simply duplicate it. It makes creating emails a lot faster.

Same with Text blocks. I’ll copy/paste in my email contact, as shown, then i’ll format it. If I need more text in the email, i’ll duplicate it.

To make this even easier, I’ll save the structure, the module so i can easily use it agian in other emails. 

Let me speed through this real quick.

I added my company heading, image, some text and the button links out to a YouTube video. 

Let’s look at the classic designer

Classic Designer in ActiveCampaign

I’ve been using ActiveCamapgin for 5 years, so I’m pretty familiar with it.  Like last time, i’ll select the newsletter template as an example.

The main difference between Classic and Current is that there is no ‘structure’ tab, it is right in the blocks. 

I input my content the same way, I format my buttons the same, I even duplicate and save them roughly the same way.

If you are using the classic builder, and you want to achieve the ‘column effect’, I recommend adding a block in, and placing it beside a current block. 

Make sure that the green line goes smaller, if the green line is full width, it will make the entire email two columns.

Email Summary

Ok great, so we have an email drafted….now what!

On the summary Tab, this is where we do a few final checks. 

First, We need to update the subject and preview lines. I also make sure the email address and reply to are filled out. 

Not having a reply to an email address is a surefire way to have email end up in spam. 

Under options, I always have the open / click tracking switching on so I can view email performance later. Below you can also schedule the email, I always do.

And with pressing the Blue schedule button, you have successfully setup your first email. Wasn’t that hard.

Let me show you a quick tip

A fast way to make emails is to duplicate them at the campaign level. Sure, you will need to change your email targeting, but this is a fast way to create multiple campaigns for different segments

Now comes to fun part, crafting an email strategy for new contacts, creating newsletters for those contacts, and creating a weekly cadence. 

If this is your first time getting into email marketing for a client or for your business, make sure to subscribe

 I’ll be diving into Active Campaign, Email marketing,  Facebook ads Zapier and more every week. Below, make sure to join my newsletter so you’ll be the first to know of new free trainings on my website.

Let’s break this jailhouse rock.

How To Test ActiveCampaign Email Automations

How To Test ActiveCampaign Email Automations

Would you launch a rocket without fuel?

 Of course not – Then don’t launch your automation until you test it!

Over the years of working with numerous ActiveCamapaign accounts, I have created my own testing ‘system’ to make sure automation are ready to go for the big launch.

 Let’s be real.

 Nothing, is more embarrassing than having a customer inbox full of complaints, or miss-fired emails.

 In this video, I am going to show you a few different ways to Test Active Campaign automation.

I’ll be testing out a few different parts of an activecampagin automation,like triggering the automation,  triggering goals, checking email sends, and how to have just a test contact go through an automation. 

First, create a test email account. An easy way is to simply put +1 in your email address, like mine would be dane+1@rockstarintegrator.com

You can do multiple numbers for multiple tests, even ‘assign’ certain test email addresses so you can test out different outcomes that your automation can produce. 

Furthermore, you can view any emails you receive in your inbox for a final quality control measure.

Here is the automation I’ll be Testing out. It’s a simple lead magnet to CTA automation.

We have emails, timers, we have goals, split logic, we have a webhook. Special note, I currently do not have a trigger on it, and I’ll explain why later

We got stuff to test!

If you want to follow along or mess with this yourself, I have shareable automation below in the comments, or go to rockstarintegrator.com/get-automated to add this to your ActiveCampaign account. 

That’s one of the reasons I love ActiveCampaign, it super easy to share tech like this to get a ‘headstart.’

Don’t have ActiveCampagin? Go to rockstarintegrator.com/getactive to start your free trial today

Let’s get it!

Manually Add  A contact to an Active Campaign Automation

This one is pretty simple. Once you have created your test email account, and have them loaded into ActiveCamaign, add them to an automation.

First, click on their profile.

In the Automation section, click the Add button, and simply select the automation. 

If the automation does not show up, make sure it is LIVE before adding the contact in. 

Since there is no trigger to this automation, this one of the easy ways to ensure that a test contact can go through the automation, without other contacts following suit.

Typically, on the right-hand side, you can see the contact history once they enter an automation, and what emails they may receive. 

Okay great, but if the contact will be added to the automation because a tag is added?

I got you

Test ActiveCamapgin Automaions with a Trigger Tag

Automation can be triggered by when a tag is added, not only internally from ActiveCampaign, but externally from another software.

Webinarjam, Kajabai, Zapier, these softwares can add tags to a profile in Activecampagin

If I want to test out this connection, this integration, i’ll create a test tag.

This tag will be applied from by third-party software. Once the tag is applied, it will kick off the automation. 

A typical example I have used is when a person has opted in for a lead magnet from Manychat and Zapier.

I’ll create a very distinct ‘Test’ tag in ActiveCamapgin, and use it as the Automation trigger.

I’ll then configure the flow in Manychat, and the Zap in Zapier, so that a new optin is added to Manycaht, they get added and tagged in ActiveCampaign

Doing this allows me to test that the flow is working, the integration is working, and contacts are being tagged and added to an automation. 

Before going live, I removed the test tag in both Activecamapgin, Manychat and Zapier, and reconfigured the integration for the new tag.

Whether we add a contact manually or from a trigger tag, since we have a ‘working’ test email address, we can also confirm that an email is sent off correctly too!

Skip Wait Timers in An Automation

Ok great, so we can get a test contact in from either manually adding them in, or from a third-party app.

But these wait timers…..I’m doing going to wait around all day. 

This is why creating a test email address is so important. Let me show you how to ‘skip’ through an automation

First, go back to the contact profile in Active campaign, and click on the automation they are in. In the pop-up window, you’ll see a ‘VIEW’ Button. 

Clicking this will take you to a contact journey view of the automation. You can see exactly what steps they have been through, and where they are next. 

To have contacts ‘skip’ wait timers, simply scroll to where they are, have click skip. 

Note: This will move the contact through the next part of the automation immediately. If there is any if/than logic that you need to setup, or goals to configure. Do those first

Luckily, I have set this up, so let’s test them!

Test Out Goals in an Active Campaign Automation

Testing out logic trees is pretty basic, if a contact has a certain attribute, such as a certain tag, they go down that path.

Goals are tricker.

Goals in ActiveCampaign allow contacts to ‘jump’ right to it once something has happened. Say for example, if someone is in this automation, and they book a call, getting that ‘call booked’ tag will jump them over there.

But how do we test this? Let me show you!

First, this goal is configured as such, if a contact has this tag, while they are anywhere in the auction, jump them here.  This is my preferred setup for a jump goal.

Say this automation is asking people to book a phone call, there is no point having them ‘wait’ in the automation, especially if you want them to receive a post-booking call email.

The if/than logic would take too long to long to filter over, so jumping is the best.

I recommend having two tabs open, one with the test contacts profile, and one of the test contacts journey. 

In the test contacts profile, add in the new tag that would trigger the jump goal.

To make sure it works, let’s head back over the the customer journey tab, and start refreshing the page. You may have to refresh the page a few times.

As you can see, the contact achieved the goal, and they promptly head to the next step.

The next steps involves one of my favorite Saas softwares. Let’s get Zapping

Test Out Goals in an Active Campaign Automation

In our automation, we saw that after the jump goal, we have a webhook to activate. 

While I am using Zapier for this example, you can use any type of webhook.

With a webhook, it’s all about what data is being sent out from ActiveCampaign. Since I have a Zapier webhook installed, and the contact has passed the webhook, lets go to Zapier and make sure the data was sent over correctly

In Zapier, a webhook will have example data and test data. I never use the example data, since at times the ‘real’ data will come in as different fields. 

Zapier has gotten much better about this, but I’m going to keep it simple. In zap I simply press ‘Test’, and we can see the test contacts info displayed.

This is support important, since now that we can confirm we have the right data i Zapier, we can easily sync up its fields in the next zapier zap.

For example, I have the data being added to a Google Calendar event. It is so much easier being able to use the test contacts information since we can clearly see its the right email address.

In Zapier, I run a test, and we can see this test contact has been added to this Google Calendar event. 

That means, when a person books a call, they will jump to the Active campaign goal, and then be added via webhook to a Google Calendar event

And that is how you can launch an automation wiht confidence. Testing each part of automation is so crucial, whether it be for your business or a clients

To recap, we tested an automation by adding a contact in, having a tag add them in, confirming an email was sent, skipped wait timers, triggered jump goals, and then tested a webhook.

Sound like a lot? It is! Need an extra hand for your project, head over to rockstarintegrator.com/book-services to have a call with me so we can discuss your next project.

Again, I have a link to the automation we test right here, and you can subscribe to my newsletter below!